Just days before the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement took effect, CityNews produced two news reports which whitewashed the anti-Israel maritime flotilla involving environmental (and anti-Israel) activist Greta Thunberg, which attempted to breach Jerusalem’s legal maritime blockade of Gaza in a high-profile publicity stunt meant to generate headlines rather than deliver meaningful assistance.
In an October 6 broadcast by reporter Erica Natividad, “Israel deports 170 more flotilla aid activists including Greta Thunberg,” viewers were told that the ships were “humanitarian aid vessels carrying food, water and medicine.”
Click below to watch the video:
In actuality, the ships carried virtually no aid, particularly when compared to the enormous amount of humanitarian goods entering Gaza on a daily basis, amounting to hundreds of trucks’ worth. The flotilla’s so-called “aid” was little more than symbolic, and its participants were primarily political activists seeking to provoke confrontation and create negative coverage of Israel.
Furthermore, while Natividad frames the campaign as attempting to bring much-needed goods into Gaza, she ignored that Israel repeatedly offered the flotilla organizers an option to have any aid they want delivered into an Israeli port, where it could then be delivered into Gaza. They repeatedly rejected those offers in favour of a media-friendly spectacle designed to demonize Israel.
Virtually the entire segment was made up of flotilla activists who complained about treatment in Israel, including one man who said he was “kidnapped,” marking perhaps the first time that alleged kidnappers took every step possible to keep their apparent victims away from their shores.
This report was not Natividad’s first foray into problematic reporting. Earlier in the summer, she delivered a broadcast that spread baseless famine allegations and ignored pertinent details, and in March, she produced a report which referred to two Gazans that Israel stated were Hamas terrorists, of being “two journalists,” making no mention of Israel’s accusations.
Two days later, field producer Beverly Andrews filed her own broadcast, “Canadians detained by Israeli forces,” where her report was presented as being little more than a repurposed press release from anti-Israel activists than as an unbiased work of journalism.
Click below to watch the video:
She called the flotilla scheme a “humanitarian aid ship” and claimed that those on board were “human rights defenders,” using terminology that might be preferred by flotilla members, but which are hardly factual in nature or even supported by objective reporting standards.
In fact, throughout the report, Andrews appeared to forget whether she was reporting the news, or acting as a spokesperson for anti-Israel activists, at one point telling viewers that the ships were “illegally boarded in international waters,” even though Israel’s actions were entirely within the bounds of international law, given that the ships were seeking to break a legal maritime blockade.
The entire report interviewed only one person, Mskwaasin Agnew, who participated in the flotilla stunt, who made repeated and unfounded accusations towards Israel. Beyond a screenshot of an Israeli governmental statement briefly shown, no interviewees were given any opportunity to challenge the falsehoods presented either by Angnew, or by Andrews in her report, leaving audiences with a profoundly one-sided narrative devoid of balance or context.
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